The artificial count of artifacts for thoracic ultrasound: what is the clinical usefulness?

Abstract

Many works in the literature have shown that the increase in the number of B lines is a nonspecific sign of underlying pulmonary disease. Actually these artifacts are the result of a physical effect of ultrasound between the chest wall and the pulmonary air. Nevertheless the intra- and inter-operator variability in B-lines counting does not only reside only in the count itself but depends also on the type and frequency of the probe used, as well as the ultrasound scan machine setting and the patient's chest shape. In our opinion, proposing a software algorithm to count lines B seems like an unproductive effort.

Keywords: B-lines; Inter-observer reliability; Intra-observer reliability; Transthoracic ultrasound; Ultrasound artifacts.